At 10.50 hours on 3 Feb 1943 the unescorted Rhexenor (Master Leonard Eccles) was hit on the port side under the bridge by one torpedo from U-217 southeast of Bermuda. After all men of the crew had abandoned ship in four lifeboats the U-boat surfaced and fired at the ship with the deck gun until she sank at 12.10 hours. The fourth mate C.W.G. Allen was taken prisoner by the U-boat after the Germans were told that the master and the chief officer were lost with the ship, landed at Brest on 23 February and was taken to the POW camp Milag Nord. The master and 18 survivors in a lifeboat reached Guadeloupe on 20 February, after one man died of exhaustion, but another one later died in hospital. On 21 February, a second boat with the chief officer and 19 survivors made landfall about 60 miles north of St. Johns, Antigua. A third boat with ten survivors landed on Jost van Dyke Island in the Tobago group on 23 February, after one men in that boat died of exhaustion. Also on 23 February, the 18 occupants in a fourth boat were picked up by the British armed yacht HMS Conqueror (LtCdr E.M. McCausland) after they had been spotted by USMC patrol aircraft of VMS-3 and landed at St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.